Well-Rounded Christensen Magnifies Duke Experience

Feb. 25, 2002

By Christine Graziano
Sports Information Assistant
&
Lisa Jones
Sports Information Student Assistant

Come June when teammates Jason Williams and Carlos Boozer are preparing for a career in the NBA and adjusting to life outside of college and away from home, Matt Christensen will be doing some adjusting of his own.

The senior civil engineering and economics double major will already be hard at work as a strategy consultant for the Boston Consulting Group near his hometown of Belmont, Mass.

Christensen, who has been at Duke for almost seven years after serving a two-year Mormon mission in Germany and redshirting a year to get back into playing shape, said he will take so many things with him from all of the different opportunities and experiences he's had as a Blue Devil to his new career.

"Having had all of the experiences over the course of my time here has given me the advantage of not overreacting to things," said Christensen. "Bad things can happen and I know I'm not going to lose my cool. The truth is, sometimes when bad things happen there's great opportunity there. We saw that in a lot of the games last year. Against Maryland with 55 seconds to go, we were down 10 and the opportunity to win the game was still there.

"Another thing I'll take with me is understanding the importance of a sustained effort. Even as students, our tendency maybe is to coast through most of the semester and then at the end, take a close look at your grades and realize that you have to step it up. If your effort isn't sustained, then you lose. I think that's a lesson that will help me for the rest of my life."

As a member of the Duke Basketball family for the past seven years, Christensen said he can see the differences in himself, most notably in how much he values his relationships now compared to when he first arrived on campus in the fall of 1995.

"One of the things that's different for me is I think my approach to just about everything now is a lot more level-headed because of the advantage of experience that I didn't have when I was 17 and came here as a freshman," he said. "When I was looking at schools, I really limited my selection criteria very strictly to three categories-academic experience, basketball experience and my church experience. I entirely neglected intentionally the experience I would have socially and what sort of relationships I would make.

"Looking back on things, my decision to come to Duke has ended up being absolutely the right one. I've been very fortunate that a lot of the relationships that I'm made have turned out to be wonderful. The friendships that I have, particularly with teammates, are very precious to me, and that's not something that I had given a lot of value going into this."

As a veteran of the Duke squad, Christensen has had the advantage of experiencing the ups and downs of college basketball and, instead of keeping what knowledge he has acquired to himself, said he realizes that his role as the only senior is to share those experiences and knowledge with his teammates.

"One of the advantages of having time here is that it gives you a lot of context for how things are happening and when things happen, what they mean," said Christensen. "Just having had the experience of being through a lot of games and a lot of practices, I know what sorts of things coach wants from the team and I can champion those ideas when coach isn't there. Coach always emphasizes things and then when coach leaves, sometimes we just don't talk about those things anymore. Not talking about those things sometimes means that we don't feel like they're as important. That separation needs not to be there. Part of my role in the locker room is to trumpet those things and make sure everybody recognizes how important they actually are."

Christensen's role on the court is somewhat different than his roll in the locker room. As a backup to starting center Carlos Boozer, Christensen sees most of his minutes when Boozer is in foul trouble or needs rest and therefore must be ready to go in at any minute.

"It's important to be ready all the time," said Christensen. "If this were something trivial, it would be easier to say that it's no big deal. But because of how important basketball is to me and how important my teammates are to me, it's pretty easy to be ready to come in and contribute."

At no point in this season was that more evident than against Kentucky on December 18 when Coach Mike Krzyzewski pulled his five struggling starters in favor of Christensen and four other reserves for three huge minutes.

The reserves entered the game with the Wildcats holding a 50-40 advantage. After a fired-up, intense Christensen completed a three-point play, they exited the game down 54-45, outscoring Kentucky's starters, 5-4, and changing the momentum of the game back in Duke's favor.

"In my mind what we had accomplished was we showed the five starters we could do this and they start the game, so they should be doing better," said Christensen. "The only difference was effort because those guys certainly are the five most talented guys on the team. So I felt like it was for me, more than anything, an example of what could be done and what component of the game was missing, which was intensity and effort. I think the big thing was the sustained effort of the whole Blue Team (the reserves). Our expectation is that they (the starters) should at least play as hard against other teams as they do against us in practices. I don't think we felt like they were doing that in the Kentucky game, at least not consistently or as a group until after we had gone in."

His three points against Kentucky might not seem like a lot, especially compared to the 38 that Jason Williams scored that night, but Christensen learned at an early age that scoring is not the only thing that matters and believes that intensity and hustle can be just as important.

"My father was my youth basketball league coach starting in third grade," said Christensen. "The first thing he always teaches his teams is to how to screen. I think because of how I was taught basketball from a very early age, things like rebounding and screening and playing good defense have been built in as metrics for a good performance. I take pride in doing the parts of basketball other than scoring points, although certainly I love to do that too. That's absolutely an important part of how I play and it's a big part of me feeling good about how I play. If I had zero rebounds and 10 points, I don't think I'd be too happy with that game."

After all of the grueling practices and time in the weight room and the hard-fought wins and the losses, Christensen said he has no regrets. He has relished the opportunity to be a member of the Duke Basketball family and hopes he can experience that complete feeling the team got after earning the National Championship in 2001 once again before he says goodbye to his college basketball career.

"I really want for all of us to have the feeling of winning a National Championship again," said Christensen. "I think a lot of the things we do - the running or drill work - the primary purpose is not to get in shape. It is to fight through as a team what is a miserable experience so that we can come together as a unit and be stronger and closer. I would like to have that closeness, too, before I leave."